ss that, if we do not gain the mastery over the enemy, we
shall, if we perish, leave them as masters of these our children and our
wives and our land and all our possessions, while if we survive, there
will be added our own enslavement and to behold all these enslaved; but
if, indeed, we overcome our foes in the war, we shall, if we live, pass
our lives among all good things, or, after the glorious ending of our
lives, there will be left to our wives and children the blessings of
prosperity, while the name of the Vandals will survive and their empire
be preserved. For if it has ever happened to any men to be engaged in a
struggle for their all, we now more than all others realize that we are
entering the battle-line with our hopes for all we have resting wholly
upon ourselves. Not for our bodies, then, is our fear, nor in death is
our danger, but in being defeated by the enemy. For if we lose the
victory, death will be to our advantage. Since, therefore, the case
stands so, let no one of the Vandals weaken, but let him proudly expose
his body, and from shame at the evils that follow defeat let him court
the end of life. For when a man is ashamed of that which is shameful,
there is always present with him a dauntless courage in the face of
danger. And let no recollection of the earlier battle come into your
minds. For it was not by cowardice on our part that we were defeated,
but we tripped upon obstacles interposed by fortune and were overthrown.
Now it is not the way of the tide of fortune to flow always in the same
direction, but every day, as a rule, it is wont to change about. In
manliness it is our boast that we surpass the enemy, and that in numbers
we are much superior; for we believe that we surpass them no less than
tenfold. And why shall I add that many and great are the incentives
which, now especially, urge us on to valour, naming the glory of our
ancestors and the empire which has been handed down to us by them? For
in our case that glory is obscured by our unlikeness to our kindred,
while the empire is bent upon fleeing from us as unworthy. And I pass
over in silence the wails of these poor women and the tears of our
children, by which, as you see, I am now so deeply moved that I am
unable to prolong my discourse. But having said this one thing, I shall
stop,--that there will be for us no returning to these most precious
possessions if we do not gain the mastery over the enemy. Remembering
these things, shew